


Rowing

by Skyler10



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kid Fic, Marriage, Pete's World, Relationship Problems, Romance, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, still in love after all these years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyler10/pseuds/Skyler10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since they met, the Doctor's always done this thing where he draws back and shuts her out when things get too intense. Ten years of marriage and two kids later, Rose is OVER IT. What happens when a domestic row pushes things too far?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rowing

**Author's Note:**

> (Don't be too scared. It's me, the fluffball. Pure shippy trash, remember? But first, a dose of angst to get us there.)

Date night was officially ruined. Still dressed for the posh restaurant where the date started, Rose crossed her arms and turned away from her husband in a huff. She began picking up toys from the living room floor and tossing them in their big blue container a little more violently than necessary.

 

He was being a right bastard and that was the whole of it. They had been going at it for hours, first a slow simmer of passive aggressive comments, then a round of nit-picking and sarcasm, followed by a truce while picking the kids up from her parents’ house and settling them into bed, then getting into the real battle once they were sure they were alone.

He had been shutting her out, as he had promised numerous times throughout their long history to never do again. It wasn’t so much that he was trying to protect her this time, but that he had this cycle. Open up, let her in, something bad happens or a memory is sparked, then he slowly starts to spend more time at the lab, his forced buoyant energy appears, he distracts himself with the kids or Tony or the TARDIS… and tells her he’s “always alright.” She thought they had promised each other never to say those words again, but they were persistent little buggers. Even if he didn’t use that exact phrase, he reliably threw her off.

 

“It’s just… you make me feel like I’m completely insane when I even try to talk to you about this!” she exploded. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair to either of us.”

“What would you have me do, Rose?! I’ve done everything you asked. I’m trying-”

“Shut up! You are NOT trying. I’ve given you so many opportunities. I’ve been doing the hard work here while you go off and feel sorry for yourself. You realize that in that big Time Lord brain of yours? When you go hide in the lab or race hoverboards with my teenage brother? I’m here. I’m picking the kids up from school. I’m the one holding all this rubbish together because YOU can’t handle whatever it is you’re running from.”

The Doctor simply stared at Rose across the room, chest heaving in frustration. They both knew those statements weren’t entirely fair or accurate, but were too emotional to care about rationality at this point.

“Oh, so that’s how it is then? Why even bring this up if all you’re going to do is _nag_ about it?” There was a hint of his old Northern gruffness in his last words and it made her want to slap him and kiss him and shake him all at once. “Because I don’t see you trying either. You say you want me to be different, but you hate change so much you won’t let me! Tell me what I’m supposed to do here, because I’m out of ideas.”

“I’m done. I can’t do this anymore, Doctor. I’m too weak or human or stupid, take your pick.” She threw up her hands literally and metaphorically. By now her spitfire was gradually softening into sad exhaustion. “But I’m tired of fighting. We can’t go round and round like this for the rest of our lives. I just… can’t.”

“What are you suggesting?” His voice was hard and low, demanding an answer. “Rose… ”

He stopped as he heard a loud sniffle escape from the stairway behind them. Both of them paled and turned with wide eyes toward the two chubby, tear-stained faces peeking out from between the banisters.

She bit her lip and closed her eyes before nodding in decision.

“Kids, get in the TARDIS.”

“Rose.”

“Now. Do as Mummy says.”

The jim-jam clad brother and sister tumbled down the stairs and into the blue box in the corner of the living room. The little girl clung to her teddy in desperation.

 

“No. You can’t do this,” he begged, now desperate.

“We don’t have a choice, Doctor. We need this. For once in your bloody life, just trust me! We have to get out of here. Tonight.”

“Please, Rose. Please don’t.”

“What’s wrong with you! I told you I’m done with this! No more. Shut up and get in the TARDIS before we both say something we regret.”

“You want me to…?” The Doctor blinked in confusion. “I’m coming with you?”

Rose turned to the wall and lightly banged her forehead on it repeatedly in a show of frustration.

“GO, you alien git! You and I are getting off this planet before we explode.”

“But I thought…”

“WHAT. You thought what?”

The Doctor’s question was timid now, a different tone entirely from the yelling of the evening.

“I thought you taking the kids and leaving me.”

Rose shook her head in disbelief. She crossed the lamp lit distance between them and gripped his shoulders.

“Ten years of marriage. Twelve years since choosing you at Bad Wolf Bay. Who knows how many since ‘run’…” She trailed off in her exasperated muttering and sighed as she cupped a hand to his cheek. He had no choice but to stare down into her wet, bloodshot eyes. “What do I have to do to convince you? How many ways can I say it? I am NEVER. Going. To. Leave. You.”

He furrowed his brow, but she cut off his protesting (no doubt back to whinging that she had every reason to leave a pathetic monster like him) with a hard, firm kiss.

“Doctor, I am sick of fighting. I’m tired and I’m angry and I’m so lost for how to fix this. I don’t know how to help you, even if you would let me. But I do know a few things. I know traveling makes it easier. I know everything isn’t fixed, but it is always better in that blue box. I know the kids are just as stressed and frightened of our shouting as we are. And I’m sure of one thing above everything else, one thing which will always be true, forever. I love you. And I will never stop loving you. If everything we’ve been through, if _living in separate universes_ couldn’t keep me from loving you, you can sure as hell bet no domestic row is going to split us up now.”

The Doctor had no choice then. He drew her into a tight embrace, clinging to her for dear life. He kissed her with bruising force and whispered against her lips.

“I’m so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. Forever. I really am trying to be the man you need. I’ve been a stupid, stupid Time Lord.”

“Yes,” she agreed with an upturn of her lips against his.

He let out a low chuckle and brushed away her tear stains.

“Let’s go, Rose. Let’s leave this all behind and get out of here.”

“Yes,” she whispered again, this time with hope and faith.

Their moment was cut short, however, by a ripping sound and a four-year-old’s scream of despair.

The Doctor and Rose ran into the TARDIS to find a headless teddy bear with a sobbing little girl holding the body and a guilty little boy holding the head.

“Anyone want to explain what’s going on here?” the Doctor asked, folding his arms and giving his son the dad stare.

Rose gathered their daughter in her arms and shushed her with calming strokes down her back.

“I didn’t mean to, Dad. Honest!”

“What have we told you two about fighting?” Rose sighed.

Their son’s eyes turned hard at this.

“You do it! What were you doing when we saw you? Don’t tell us not to fight when you two are worse than us!”

Rose and the Doctor exchanged guilty looks.

“Alright, I’m calling a family meeting,” the Doctor sighed. “C’mon.”

The couple wordlessly led their children into the ship’s kitchen.

“Time for some hot chocolate,” she proclaimed, dropping her now sniffling daughter into a chair at the table. Rose pulled out their last box of a special Lunian cocoa known for its sleepy-time effect on children.

“We’re sorry you had to hear that,” the Doctor offered as he sat down next to his son. “Sometimes adults fight about silly things too.”

“And sometimes we fight about important things,” Rose reminded him as she stirred the cocoa powder into two 26th century spill-proof mugs.

“Mummy?” their daughter whimpered. “Are you going to go away?”

“What?” Rose let out a little laugh of surprise.

“Lily’s mummy went away. That’s why her daddy takes her to the park alone.”

“So did Liam’s dad,” her brother chimed in. “He said they fought a lot and he was so sick of the shouting that he was glad when they moved here without ‘im. Doesn’t keep him up at night now that they just do it over the phone.”

“Is that…” the tiny girl sniffled, tears gathering in her eyes again. “Is that what’s going to happen to you two?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Rose melted at her children’s fearful words. “No, nothing like that. Mummy and Daddy were just cross tonight. But we love each other so much. We aren’t getting divorced like your friends’ parents. Not ever.”

The kids looked to their father for confirmation.

“She’s right.” The Doctor nodded, any lingering anxiety of his own quenched by her words. “We don’t always agree on things and we don’t always get along, but that’s what it means to be a family. We have to be honest with each other, even if it isn’t easy.”

He said the last part directly to Rose, his meaning resonating through their telepathic bond down to her soul. They allowed themselves a moment as the kids enjoyed their warm, alien, chocolatey milk.

_“I forgive you,_ ” she sent back. “ _Forgive me?”_

_“There’s nothing to forgive.”_

_“Doctor…”_

_“I do.”_

She smiled at his choice of words. He not only was forgiving her for pushing him in the wrong ways, for getting defensive, for inflicting more pain when she normally would have reached out in compassion, but she knew he was also echoing their wedding vows.

The damage from wounding words exchanged earlier in the evening healed the longer they lingered in their bond. After a while – she never could keep track of time when they were connected like this – she was relaxed enough for the lateness of the hour to catch up to her exhausted heart, mind and body. She hid a yawn, but, of course, the Doctor could sense it anyway. He eased out of her mind and she reciprocated, raising her most basic barriers again as he had taught her so very long ago.

“Bedtime for all little space and time travelers,” the Doctor announced. "Then I’ll get us into the vortex for the night. And Mummy and Daddy will have a surprise you for in the morning.”

“Ooo what is it?”

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise, stupid,” was the predictable six-year-old brother reply.

“Hey now! We don’t call people stupid,” Rose reprimanded.

“You call Dad stupid.”

The Doctor took the opportunity to interject as he stood and lifted their sleepy daughter into his arms.

“She only does that when I deserve it. And your sister did not.”

“Sorry,” he replied, sounding anything but.

“I’ll have less of that attitude, young man,” Rose scolded. “You can get to bed as well.”

“Tuck us in again, Mummy?” Their daughter’s honey eyes blinked open from behind messy brownish-blonde curls on her father’s shoulder.

“Of course, darling. Let me clean up here and I’ll be right there.”

It had been a rough night for all of them, but Rose felt better just watching her husband guide their children down the corridor to their bedrooms. She gathered their empty cocoa mugs and paused to watch them on their way. She forgot on Earth, sometimes, the complexity of the part-alien-man she had married. It was so easy to slip into normal domesticity, to pretend they were a mundane little couple with ordinary lives. But here, on their ship, everything felt right again. They were the Doctor and Rose, stuff of legends (complete with complicated histories and part-Time Tot offspring). Her heart broke with compassion again instead of feeding resentment and stress. It was here they were most at home.

\-------

She voiced her idea to him that night in bed (after more apologizing with lips and fingers and tongues, followed by a thorough round of reconciliation).

‘What if it could be like this all of the time?” she mumbled into his chest.

“Hmm?”

“I know it wouldn’t, like, magically solve everything,” she assured, lifting her head to gauge his reaction. “But what if the TARDIS became our normal life and all that back in London was just the side stuff?”

“Travel full time?”

“Just like we used to, before.”

“With two additions,” he pointed out.

“We can teach them anything they need to know. They’ll learn more traveling with us than any Earth education could give them. I’m proof of that.”

“Ok.”

“Yeah?” A smile played at her lips.

“Yes. Let’s do it. The TARDIS is home anyway. We have everything we need.”

“What about the house?”

The Doctor lifted an eyebrow. She was serious. She wasn’t just running away, as he so often did.

“And Torchwood?” he asked, avoiding her question.

“Oh god. And Mum. She’ll have a fit.”

“Well, might I point out yet again, time machine.”

“Exactly.” Rose leveled a pointed gaze at him that clearly read “12 months not 12 hours.”

“Ah. Well, that was a different TARDIS. And a different me, if we’re being technical about it. This one is much newer, more reliable.”

“You or the ship?” She poked him in the side.

“Well, both!”

She dissolved into giggles at this and kissed his neck. They settled into comfortable silence.

“We’ll figure it out,” she finally sighed. “After this trip. We’ll talk to Dad and reassure Mum and get the kids excited.” She paused to yawn and he stroked gentle fingers through her hair in the way she liked right before drifting off to sleep. “You’ll see. Gonna be fantastic.”

“Good night, my Rose.”

“Night. Love you.”

She was out before he had the chance to respond, but he did anyway. He lightly kissed her forehead and whispered it into darkness, only heard by the happiest sentient time machine in the universe.

 

\-----

The first thing he said to her the next morning was another apology, this time of the verbal, rather than physical, variety.

“Me too,” she replied, eyelids still heavy with sleep. “Why do we keep going ‘round like this? All these years.”

“I’m always going to be afraid of losing you, Rose. You are far too precious to me. I can’t help it,” he sighed. “Do you remember our first fight?”

“The day my dad…?”

“Yes. But before that. You said something that scared me.”

“Did you think I was going to leave you to stay with him? Like the first time in this universe? Gingerbread houses, you said.”

“No. I meant, well, we were yelling and… you said for once I wasn’t the most important man in your life.”

“Right, not jealous at all then.” She gave him a half-smile to lighten the mood.

“Actually, it wasn’t that.” Rose looked doubtful, but didn’t interject, so he continued in his confession. “It’s just, I hadn’t really thought you felt that way… that I ever was.”

“The most important man in my life? Of course you were, even then. I wish I would have told you. Maybe we weren’t ready that early on to be _involved_. But I should’ve said at least something to let you know how much I cared.”

“You did, or tried to. I just didn’t believe anyone could… Besides, back then you didn’t even believe I danced yet,” he pointed out, pulling her closer in emphasis.

She rolled her hips against his before responding.

“I’ve never been so glad to be wrong,” she responded in her silky, come-hither tone. He took her words as an invitation and kissed his way from her shoulder up her neck. “Doctor?”

“Mmhm?”

She waited until he pulled back before asking her question.

“You told the kids we’d have a surprise place for them this morning. Where are we taking them?”

He smirked a little before answering her.

“Weeeeell, all this _rowing_ had me thinking. How are you with a canoe, Rose Tyler?”

She rolled her eyes at his pun.

“No? How about punting? Kayak? Ooo that’s a good word. Paddle boat? Or paddle board for that matter. Raft? What about a dingy? Another fun word to say. Sweep-oar, sculling, stroking…” At the last one, he leaned in close, scratching his nails lightly up her thigh to tease her before abruptly sitting up and grinning down. Before he could fully bounce to his feet and pull her up with him, Rose whomped him over the head with her pillow. He tickled her in retaliation and soon they were engaged in a fight of an entirely different nature than the one their children had interrupted the previous night.

They paused to catch their breath and realized where they had ended up: on the floor, cushioned by their fluffy duvet, with her straddling his hips. Her golden bedhead waves fell around her face and shoulders. His bare torso lay before her. His lips parted, ready for the taking.

They caught each other’s eyes roaming in appreciation and knew in that moment: No matter how many long days and nights of discord like the one before, there would be infinitely more mornings like this one, perfectly imperfect and ready for them to explore. Together.

 

_“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you_

_Come make a mess of it”_

-          _Birdy_

 

 

 


End file.
